Parallel Exit

Give the gift of laughter! Parallel Exit is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law. Contributions support ongoing arts and outreach programs, bringing the joy of physical comedy to audiences of all ages.

Ken Banta is a proven executive and advisor in the pharmaceutical industry, driving transformational change and building high performance leadership and organizational cultures. Most recently, he played a pivotal role in positioning Bausch + Lomb for its $8.7 billion Valeant acquisition. As the Founder and Managing Partner of The Forum For Leadership, Ken is a senior advisor to CEOs and top management including at Forest Laboratories and Retrophin Incorporated. He is also the Principal of The Vanguard Forum For Health Care Leadership, an annual leadership meeting for top tier executives drawn from across the healthcare spectrum. From 1982 through 1991, Ken was a writer and foreign correspondent for Time Magazine based in Chicago, Vienna and London. This included his assignment as Eastern Europe Bureau Chief from 1985 to 1990, covering the democratic revolutions of that region. Ken is a graduate of Amherst College and attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He resides in Manhattan.

Mark Lonergan

Mark Lonergan is the Founding Artistic Director of Parallel Exit, a three-time Drama Desk Award nominee for Unique Theatrical Experience. As a director for the past 20 years, he has overseen numerous plays, musicals, variety shows, and dance productions, including Everybody Gets Cake!, Room 17B, Cut to the Chase, and This Way That Way (all at 59E59 Theaters); Time Step (The New Victory Theater); Exit, Stage Left (Lincoln Center); I Love Bob and Powerhouse (Joyce SoHo); and Velocity (Guggenheim Museum). Mark’s work has toured throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, at festivals such as the Festival of Dreams in Austria, the COS Festival in Spain, the We Love Dance Festival in Japan, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the United States, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland (Awarded: Spirit of the Fringe). Mark is the Guest Director of the 2015-16 Big Apple Circus production The Grand Tour. He also leads workshops and master classes in acting and physical theatre for a number of colleges throughout the country.

Matthew Menendez

Matthew Menendez serves as counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, where his work focuses on fair and impartial courts. Prior to joining the Brennan Center, he was a litigator at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in New York City. Matt attended New York University School of Law as a Dean’s Scholar and graduated in 2007, having served as notes editor of the NYU Environmental Law Journal. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science from Swarthmore College in 1999. After graduating from Swarthmore, he worked in Washington, DC, as an aide to Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, where he concentrated on issues including the judiciary, energy, and the environment.

Jean Selden Greene

Jean Selden Greene is currently a Managing Director at Lazard in its New York office, having joined the firm in 1999. She is a member of the firm’s General Banking group, which spans the industrial, consumer, retail and financial sponsor sectors. Some of Jean’s representative recent transactions include Tyco’s separation into three companies, ITT’s separation into three companies, and The Bon-Ton’s acquisition of the Northern Department Store Group of Saks. Prior to joining Lazard, Jean was an Analyst at Smith Barney, focusing on financing and advisory assignments for oil and gas companies. She received her undergraduate degree, with a double major in Economics and French, from Wellesley College and an MBA, with concentrations in Finance and Accounting, from the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business.

Mark Lonergan

Mark Lonergan (Founding Artistic Director) has led Parallel Exit since its inception. As a director for the past 20 years, he has overseen numerous plays, musicals, variety shows, and dance productions, including Everybody Gets Cake!, Room 17B, Cut to the Chase, and This Way That Way (all at 59E59 Theaters); Time Step (The New Victory Theater); Exit, Stage Left (Lincoln Center); I Love Bob and Powerhouse (Joyce SoHo); and Velocity (Guggenheim Museum). Mark’s work has toured throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, at festivals such as the Festival of Dreams in Austria, the COS Festival in Spain, the We Love Dance Festival in Japan, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the United States, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland (Awarded: Spirit of the Fringe). Mark is the Guest Director of the 2015-16 Big Apple Circus production The Grand Tour. He also leads workshops and master classes in acting and physical theatre for a number of colleges throughout the country.

Joel Jeske

Joel Jeske (Associate Artistic Director/Creator/Performer) is a physical comedian, director, teacher, and creator of his own theater shows. With Parallel Exit, he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in 2006, 2011, and 2015 for creating Cut to the Chase, Room 17B, and Everybody Gets Cake! He has appeared on television and in major feature films, including Two for the Money with Al Pacino and Two Weeks Notice with Sandra Bullock. Internationally, he starred with Peter Shub at the Apollo Variete in Germany and was the headlining show at Festival Der Traume in Austria, the COS Festival in Spain, and the AEMI International Clown Festival in China. As a clown, Joel toured and created clown acts for Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus, Cirque Du Soleil, and hosted the Big Apple Circus production of Step Right Up! He is the creator and lead clown of the Big Apple Circus production The Grand Tour. He was honored as Clown of the Year 2007 won the Audience Choice Award for best clown act in 2009. Visit joeljeske.com.

Oana Botez

Oana Botez’s (Costume Designer) work for Parallel Exit includes Everybody Gets Cake! and the Big Apple Circus 2015-16 production The Grand Tour. Other work includes sets and costumes for many plays at the National Theater of Bucharest and work across the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Boston. Her wide variety of work in theater, opera, film, and dance includes collaborations with Robert Woodruff, Richard Foreman, Maya Beiser, Richard Schechner, Blanka Zizka, Brian Kulick, Zelda Fichandler, Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, Karin Coonrod, Jay Scheib, Evan Ziporyn, Eduardo Machado, Gus Solomon Jr. and Paradigm, Carmen De Lavallade, Dusan Tynek, Rania Ajami, Gisela Cardenas, Tony Speciale, Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper, Matthew Neenan, Molissa Fenley, Zishan Ugurlu, Michael Sexton, Pig Iron Company, Play Company, Charles Moulton, and Ripe Time. Oana graduated with an MFA in Design from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and was a Princess Grace Recipient, NEA/TCG Career Development Program 2009-2011.

Mike Dobson

Mike Dobson (Creator / Composer / Performer) most recently served as the designer and performer of the foley (live sound effects) for Old Hats starring Bill Irwin and David Shiner at Signature Theatre. He was assistant director for Signature Theatre’s production of Big Love, directed by Tina Landau; music director of Spiegelworld’s Vegas Nocturne at the Cosmopolitan Hotel of Las Vegas; and a performer in Circus Smirkus (Big Apple Circus), Time Step (Parallel Exit/New Victory Theater), Cut to the Chase (Parallel Exit/59E59 Theaters), The Old Comedy (Classic Stage Company), and Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (Zipper Theater). In 2011, Mike was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in the category of Unique Theatrical Experience for Room 17B (Parallel Exit/59E59 Theaters), which he co-wrote. Mike appeared twice on The Late Show with David Letterman and has performed with Paul Anka, Bill Irwin, Clay Aiken, Dawn Upshaw, Nellie McKay, and Ira Sullivan.

Maruti Evans

Maruti Evans (Set and Lighting Designer) has worked as a set designer in opera, theater, and dance for the last 15 years. For Parallel Exit, he designed set and lights for Everybody Gets Cake! (59E59 Theaters; Drama Desk nomination, Unique Theatrical Experience), Room 17B (59E59 Theaters; Drama Desk nomination, Unique Theatrical Experience), and Exit Stage Left (Lincoln Center Institute). He is also on the creative team as set and lighting designer of the Big Apple Circus 2015-16 production The Grand Tour. His other work includes Elsewhere (BAM), Much Ado About Nothing (McCarter Theater), An Oresteia (Classic Stage Company), Alice vs. Wonderland (American Repertory Theatre), Mouth Wide Open (American Repertory Theater), Master and Margarita (SummerScape), Nutcracker (Moscow Art Theater), Crowns (Goodman Theater), The Ballad Of Emmett Till (Penumbra Theater), and Sweeney Todd (Virginia Opera). He received the 2013 Sam Norkin Drama Desk Award for Tiny Dynamite and Pilo Family Circus, as well as Drama Desk nominations for In the Heat of the Night, Slaughterhouse 5, and Blindness (Godlight Theater Company).

Danny Gardner

Danny Gardner’s (Creator / Choreographer / Performer) select NYC credits include: Lucky in the Broadway production of Dames At Sea; Parallel Exit’s Everybody Gets Cake! and Room 17B (Drama Desk Nominations); Sheldon Harnick’s Dragons and A Doctor In Spite Of Himself both at the York Theatre; four Broadway By the Year concerts at Town Hall (choreographing and performing); and Parallel Exit’s Time Step at the New Victory Theater. Select touring and regional credits include: Mike Nulty in White Christmas; Here To Stay — The Gershwin Experience; 42nd Street; four shows at the two-time Tony Award-winning Goodspeed Opera House (most recently Frank in Show Boat); nine shows at the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse, including the world premiere of Neurosis; and the world premiere of Noah Racey’s Pulse at Asolo Repertory Theatre. dannyjgardner.com

Brent McBeth

Brent McBeth (Creator / Performer) is a performer, dance teacher, and choreographer who joined Parallel Exit in 2006 with the creation of Time Step and continues to create new works with this amazing company. He has performed with Parallel Exit at the GOP Variety Theaters (Germany), Festival der Traume (Austria), the COS Festival (Spain), and as a clown for the Big Apple Circus 2015-16 production of The Grand Tour. New York performance credits include: Everybody Gets Cake! (59E59 Theaters); Room 17B (59E59 Theaters); Time Step (New Victory Theater); Exit Stage Left (Lincoln Center Institute, Symphony Space); No, No Nanette and Face the Music (City Center Encore!); Broadway By The Year (Town Hall). Regional and tour performance credits include: Fosse (with Ben Vereen and Ruthie Henshall); Thank You, Gregory (with Maurice Hines); Cabaret (Emcee); Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (cast album); and Thoroughly Modern Millie (Dexter).

Olivia O'Brien

Olivia O’Brien (Production Stage Manager) has worked with Parallel Exit since 2005 on many productions across the country and internationally. New York credits include The Water Dream (NYMF 2013) and productions at the Lincoln Center Institute, the Astoria Performing Arts Center, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Flamenco Vivo, the Target Margin Theater Company, and the Oberon Theater Ensemble. She has served as the resident PSM at LaGuardia High School (“The Fame School”), with credits including Hairspray, Guys and Dolls, Sweet Charity, Kismet, and The Merry Widow. She has also worked with Barrington Stage Company, Asolo Repertory Theatre, PICT Classic Theatre, and Cortland Repertory Theatre. oliviaobrien.com

Ryan Kasprzak

Ryan Kasprzak was honored to serve as assistant choreographer alongside Emmy winner Josh Bergasse on NBC’s Smash. He was associate resident choreographer and dance captain for the national tour of Billy Elliot. Ryan was dance captain on the international tour of Fosse and studied the style with Gwen Verdon, Ann Reinking, and Ben Vereen. Along with his brother Evan, he appeared and choreographed on Fox’s So You Think You can Dance. Most recently, Ryan was Dance Captain for The Bandstand at Paper Mill Playhouse directed and choreographed by Tony winner Andy Blankenbuehler and choreographer for Southern Comfort at Public Theater. He is part of the resident faculty at The Performing Arts Project and a professor and alumnus of Marymount Manhattan College. ryankasprzak.com

Derek Roland

Derek Roland is a New York City based performer, writer/composer, director and choreographer. Originally from Rochester, Derek received a BFA in Theatre Performance from Niagara University, and his theatre credits include National Tours of Kiss Me Kate (Bill Calhoun), Show Boat, Cinderella, and Funny Girl, as well as the Italian Tour of West Side Story. NY credits include performances at Town Hall, City Center, Derick Grant's I Love Tap, Melinda Sullivan's Gone, Tap City (at the Duke Theater), the New Victory Theater, NY Fringe Festival, American Theater of Actors, The York Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, and the NYMF. Derek is on faculty at Steps on Broadway, Mark Morris Dance Group, CAP21 Conservatory, Marymount Manhattan College and Broadway Dance Center. His direction and choreography have been featured in NYC at venues such as Lincoln Center Institute, the New Victory Theater, the Laurie Beechman Theater, 59E59 Theater's, Emerging Artists Theatre, NYMF, Vital Theater Company, and New World Stages. Current projects in development include the original rock musical Pie Eater! derekroland.com